The inventive concepts described herein relate to a method of processing equipment information from a plurality of equipment and using the processed result.
Many efforts are under way to improve productivity by means of equipment information that is produced from equipment items used during a semiconductor fabrication process. Also, since protocols of semiconductor equipment made by manufacturers are different from each other, many efforts are under way to conduct smooth communications among the equipment and/or between the equipment and a host device.
The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) is a trade association of semiconductor manufacturers that makes rules, protocols, procedures, and/or standards for communications between semiconductor equipment. The SEMI rules may include protocols including the following SEMI Equipment Communications Standard (SECS), High-speed SECS Message Services (HSMS), and Generic Equipment Model (GEM). The SECS may include SECS-I and SECS-II.
The rules define procedures and/or protocols for communications between the semiconductor equipment and one or more host devices. The rules define physical interconnection, signal levels, data speed, and logical protocols that are required for information exchange between a host and manufacture equipment.
Semiconductor fabrication may include many processes and a lot of equipment may be used to implement the various semiconductor fabrication processes. However, problems may arise if process information not defined by the SECS is acquired at an end of each process, and the acquired information is used as analysis information. A lot of equipment information that semiconductor equipment generates during a fabricating processor may be differently collected due to different formats of equipment manufacturers, etc., thereby causing problems with reliability and compatibility. Thus, many semiconductor manufacturers desired a system that classifies equipment information into a fixed format in order to apply equipment information to one or more processes.